Everything You Are
by LeaderOfTheRevolution
Summary: sequel to Everything I'm Not. oneshot unless i get more ideas and people review. Three years have passed, and human-turned-vampire Suzue has learned some hard truths. ZeroxOC
1. Slowest Form of Suicide

A/N: sequel. probably a oneshot, unless requested otherwise.

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_"Love is the slowest form of suicide."

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Slowest Form of Suicide

It feels like being tortured. Nailed to the wall, crucified, killed very, very slowly. A single red-hot knife making a million cuts on your body. A gun blasting a hole through your heart, over and over and over, only you never die. The pain never stops. Ever.

Three long years have passed. Walking through a pathway in the woods, looking around her at the gleaming white snow, Suzue absently twists the ring on her finger. It was her idea; Zero felt that the idea of marriage was too human for them. He doesn't like pretending to be what he isn't. She knows what she's looking for' she doesn't know why she's looking for it here. Maybe it's a vampire thing. After all, they _are_ purebloods. She pauses suddenly.

"Suzue-chan?"

She recognizes the voice, but the beautiful long-haired girl with wide eyes is not the Yuki Cross that she remembers. Five years change a person, she supposes. Besides, look how much she herself has changed.

Yuki stands by Kaname Kuran. Time hasn't touched him.

"Suzue Amaya?" asks Yuki in disbelief. Yuki's eyes go to her mouth, and Suzue remembers too late that her fangs are now visible. "You're a..."

"A vampire, yes." She avoids looking Kaname automatically, though he is the one she has come to find. "And it's not Amaya anymore." She holds up her left hand, shows Yuki the ring.

Yuki explodes into a smile, ever the cheerful girl Suzue had once went to school with. "You're married, Suzue-chan? To who?"

It's as if no time has passed. Yuki still talks as though they are human schoolgirls. _I bet Zero hasn't even crossed her mind._

A small child of two and a half bounds up to Suzue, tugging on her coat. Suzue smiles at the girl. Her hair is a lighter shade of red than Suzue's own, but it is undeniable that this girl is her daughter. She picks the girl up.

"What are you doing here, Aimi?" she asks softly. "I told you to stay in the park."

The girl, Aimi, fidgets in her mother's arms. "I got bored, Mommy."

She knows this isn't true. She knows, because she has watched her daughter in the park, has watched her be teased for her strange eyes, her foreign hair color, her abnormally sharp canines. It is hard for a young child so different to be among other young children. It has long been Suzue's thought that children are much crueler than adults could ever be.

Kaname has a knowing smile, Yuki a shocked look. It is obvious that the two have seen Aimi's eyes and made the connection. It isn't hard to see the resemblance.

Yuki's lips form awkwardly around a name, but she makes no sound.

Zero's violet eyes stare of of Aimi's round face as she looked from the strange people to her mother, confusion in her open, trusting expression.

"Mommy," Aimi says with a small frown. "Who are they?" Understanding suddenly lights up her features, a combination of hope and eagerness so bright that Suzue suddenly wants to cry. "Are they going to help Daddy?"

She has gone through this so many times, but it never seems to stick. Maybe Aimi doesn't want to believe the truth. Suzue doesn't blame her.

"Sweetie..." Suzue chokes on her words, smoothing hair back from Aimi's face.

"What's wrong with him?" asks Yuki. "What's wrong with Zero?" She sounds concerned.

_What right has she to be concerned?_

Suzue doesn't look at her daughter, _can't_ look at her daughter. She is too afraid of seeing that hopeful expression vanish, as it has so many times before. She shouldn't have to do this to Aimi so often. A child should grow up with hope. She can't keep destroying it like this, doesn't want to. It nearly kills her to do so. But she must.

Because that's the way it has to be.

So, she looks not at Aimi, avoiding sadness. She looks not at Yuki, avoiding anger and contempt and jealousy. She looks at Kaname Kuran, whose smile has vanished, almost as if he knows already what she is going to say. Maybe he does. Maybe he's known all along this would happen. She takes a deep breath.

"Zero is dead."

Kaname's face is stone. Yuki is stunned, too stunned for it to have fully registered. Aimi, she knows without looking, is devastated. As for herself, her heart seems to have stopped beating. Her lungs aren't working; apparently she has forgotten how to breathe. She clears her throat, raises her voice, and says it again.

"Zero is dead."

It sounds more true the second time, though she isn't sure why. Yuki begins to cry, and in a horrible moment of loathing, Suzue hopes she feels guilty. She hopes the guilt is crushing her. She deserves to feel horrible, deserves to be hurt.

She deserves it all; after all, it's her fault.

Aimi is staring numbly at her mother's shoulder. Suzue looks down at her, a terrible, crushing weight on her heart.

"Oh, baby, I'm--"

"I know, Mommy," says the little girl, her voice level, her tone betraying a wisdom that no toddler should possess. "It's okay. I know."

_Zero is dead_. She has never said his name with that sentence. It was always, _Your father. _Never his name.

Now, as she holds her child close and stares at the two purebloods responsible, it suddenly feels as if his death is finally real. Zero is really gone. Though there is a chance, a slim chance, a minuscule fraction of a chance, that he could still be alive, Suzue doesn't allow herself that meager hope. It hurts too much, that hope. _Besides. _The fingers of her right hand, the hand not holding her daughter to her hip, reaches into her coat pocket and brushes across the letter.

_Besides. It's not as if he loved me anyway._

It feels like being tortured. Nailed to the wall, crucified, killed very, very slowly. A single red-hot knife making a million cuts on your body. A gun blasting a hole through your heart, over and over and over, only you never die. The pain never stops. Ever.

That's what it feels like to know the person you love loves someone else.

Zero had always been a convincing liar; he even managed to fool himself.

"He loved you," Suzue says, and for a moment she is unsure whether she is saying it to Aimi, or to Yuki. Then, she realizes it doesn't matter. She alone knows the truth about Aimi's father. No one else would ever, because no one would understand. It is utterly impossible. No one could understand.

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A/N: **review. **please.

i hope you enjoyed it. haven't decided if i am making this more than a oneshot.


	2. Broken Links

A/N: sequel, chapter two. cuz 3 ppl reviewed at least, and it really was very mean of me to leave you guys hanging with that whole "zero's dead" thing. i'm so cruel. you love me.

:]

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Broken Links

"How?" The word from Yuki's lips is almost too quiet for Suzue to hear.

Suzue resists the urge to launch herself across the clearing at the young female vampire. Cold air lightly stings her face. She doesn't want to explain, but the words slip out. Must be a pureblood thing.

"He was a Level E, if you recall." Suzue's voice is snappish and harsh. "He was managing it, but we both knew he couldn't keep it under control forever. We just didn't know it would be so...violent. One night..." She stops, overwhelmed. She clears her throat. "One night..."

Aimi takes her mother's hand. At some point, Suzue had put her down.

"It's okay, Mommy," Aimi says. She squeezes her hand. "Do you want me to tell them? Is it too hard for you?"

Suzue wipes at her eyes. She needs to be strong, for Aimi. Aimi has seen her fall apart too many times over this. She can't lose it now.

"One night, he lost control," she continues, licking her chapped lips. The scars on her body burn at the memory. The feeling as he tore deeply into her skin...She shudders despite herself.

Yuki watches her, fresh tears in her eyes. "What did he do to you?" she asks haltingly.

Suzue's shaking fingers unbutton her coat. Her fingers grasp the hem of her shirt.

"Turn around, Aimi," she says thickly.

Aimi does so, and Suzue lifts her shirt to reveal the jagged, ripple scar spread across her stomach. The scar runs from from her hips in a diagonal to her left shoulder, but all Yuki can see is a small portion. Yuki gasps. Suzue closes her coat, fumbling with the buttons. She wants to stop talking about it. She wants to run away from these, these..._monsters_. She wants to claw out Yuki's eyes, demand the reason to justify her having left Zero behind all those years ago. Then Kaname catches and holds her gaze, and the remainder of her tale is ripped from her.

"He...He regained control when Aimi started to cry. She was one and a half." Aimi rubs the back of her mother's hand gently with her thumb. She doesn't act her age. A strange mixture of pride and despair surges through her. Aimi should be normal. She should have a normal life. She's not even three yet.

"He left with Bloody Rose in his coat pocket. He said he wouldn't be back."

"You don't know he's dead," Yuki protests wildly. "He could--"

Suzue's anger flares, returning anew. How dare she? How could she possibly think that Suzue herself hadn't already considered the possibilities, every wild, unrealistic possibility?

"Zero and I are bonded," she interrupts. She almost grins smugly at the expression of surprise on Yuki's face. "I don't know how, I don't know why."

Suzue pauses.

"All I know is, when Aimi turned two seven months ago, the part of me connected to Zero died."

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A/N: well?

i need a lot more than 3 reviews here, guys. **review. feedback.** seriously. if you read this, please at least type SOMETHING.

please and thanks. i know it's short.


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